Good Books Lift You!

Monday, February 6, 2017

Review: My Life in Orange

This is a book about the period when Tim's mother was a close follower of the controversial guru Osho (Rajneesh). His mother starts by attending a lecture and gets deeply involved - visiting and living in the Pune ashram of Osho and later Europe, America as well.

As he was a small boy at the time, Tim recounts much of this later. That is one of the problems of the book. There is no insight on what Tim's mother found attractive in Osho's teachings, and whether she suffered any self-doubt during much of her time as a follower. There is a touch of humour as Tim narrates the going-ons at Osho's various centres, and many episodes are fun to read.

Nevertheless, what the book lacks is depth and comes across as a very shallow recap of much of what happened at the time. Quite a bit of the latter part of the book is public knowledge as well. The story being a deeply personal one for Tim and his family is a to the book's credit though.